The Many Lands Challenge for Sammy… part 4

For me I want to win any competition I enter. Even if I have zero chance of winning I still want to win. I want to be the tall handsome guy that wins a competition for the grotesque midget circus freak of the year. I’m the white guy with the small penis in the “black guys and their huge willies” show. I want to be the women who beat testicular cancer, and the dog who wins the cat show. Dreams aside, the Many Lands Challenge (still so impressed with that name) is no different. I want to win… I should win.

I will give you a dish that is not only tasty, but also accessible. I think when we break this challenge down to the nuts and bolts it’s about Sammy and her desire to impress her Gelfling beau. Now I don’t think we need to tie her down with complex curry pastes or half cooked national emblems or things of the such. No. She needs good, simple food she can cook and impress this guy enough to get his dacks off. And what could be better to do that then some pork? (Oh the innuendo). What’s that? Pork and sausage on the same plate? Yes. Yes. Pork belly? Roasted with crackle? Yes. I’m having a moment here.

What are we cooking? I hear you ask. We go to the lands of my fore fathers. The lands of questionable sexual acts… The lands of Germany and Poland. So pack your plastic coveralls and get ready for Pork belly with smoked sausage, sauerkraut, chat potatoes and mustard. This dish will win it for me!*

There’s a little German/polish small goods stall in the South Melbourne Markets**. Go there and ask for a nice, smoky sausage. And maybe throw a little wink at the lady when you do, just to let her know it’s for impure intent. And get a jar of sauerkraut while you’re there. And some polish mustard.

PORK BELLY
1kg pork belly, skin scored (if you give it a 9/10 I would suggest you may want to take it back to the butcher and ask him to score it for you because you’ve clearly missed the point)
• Season the pork skin quite heavily with sea salt and white pepper
• Cut 1 brown onion and 1 granny smith apple into 2cm thick slices and put them onto a baking tray, place the pork on top of the onion and apple. This will act as a trivet and give the pork juices a delicious flavour
• Whack it into a preheated oven at 160C for two hours. Rotate the oven tray after one hour
• For the last 10 minutes of cooking crank your oven up as high as it will go to effect the crackling
• If your crackle isn’t quite there, another 5 minutes under the grill should do it
• Now rest your pork

SAUERKRAUT AND POTATOES
• Simmer your jar of sauerkraut with a splash of Riesling and a pinch of caraway seeds
• After 10 minutes add the whole smoked sausage to the pot and simmer for another 10 minutes with the lid on
• While this is going on boil a handful of chat (new) potatoes. Once cooked, drain them, season them, add a little butter and some chopped parsley, and leave them in the pot off the heat to stay warm

TIME TO PLATE UP
• Slice the sausage and arrange it sexily (like German sexy) on a plate with the sauerkraut and potatoes
• Put a nice big chunk of pork belly on top of that
• Add a little of the pan juices (you could even blitz the apple and onion up into an apple sauce if its not too caramelised aka. Burnt) and serve mustard on the side
• My grandparents would be very happy with this one

*Just in case you’re not up to date on what’s going on, this Many Lands Challenge is also a competition between myself and Pauly, as voted by you the people, to see who gets to do the dessert course. You can vote anywhere on this blog. Sorry. Facebook doesn’t count.

**If you don’t live near Melbourne maybe try somewhere local to you. It would be silly to go all the way to Melbourne just for some smoked sausage… Or would it?